Samuel Park

From the critically acclaimed author of This Burns My Heart comes a “luminous mother-daughter saga” (Entertainment Weekly) about a young woman who is forced to flee 1980s Brazil for California, and in doing so unearths the hidden life of her enigmatic mother. Mara Alencar’s mother Ana is her moon, her sun, her stars. Ana, a struggling voice-over actress, is an admirably brave and recklessly impulsive woman who does everything in her power to care for her little girl in perilous 1980s Rio de Janeiro. With no other family or friends her own age, Ana eclipses Mara’s entire world. They take turns caring for each other—in ways big and small. But who is Ana, really? As she grows older, Mara slowly begins to piece together the many facets of Ana’s complicated life—a mother, a rebel, and always, an actress. When Ana becomes involved with a civilian rebel group attempting to undermine the city’s cruel Police Chief, their fragile arrangement begins to unravel. Mara is forced to flee the only home she’s ever known, for California, where she lives as an undocumented immigrant, caregiving for a dying woman. It’s here that she begins to grapple with her turbulent past and starts to uncover vital truths—about her mother, herself, and what it means to truly take care of someone. A “lovely and heartbreaking” (People) story that is “simultaneously dreamlike and visceral” (The Atlantic), The Caregiver is “a beautiful testament to Samuel Park’s extraordinary talents as a storyteller…that reads, in some moments, like a thriller—and, in others, like a meditation on what it means to be alive…A ferocious page-turner with deep wells of compassion for the struggles of the living—and the sins of the dead” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

The Caregiver

Struggling to provide a good life for her daughter in spite of her own unhappy marriage and a culture that grants no rights to women, Soo-Ja Choi of 1960s Korea navigates the pitfalls of her conniving in-laws while longing for her true love, Doctor Yul, whose return forces Soo-Ja to make a difficult choice.

A Novel

This Burns My Heart

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Die junge Soo-Ja will als Diplomatin die Welt bewegen, doch eine einzige falsche Entscheidung macht ihre Träume zunichte. Anstatt mit dem einfühlsamen Arzt und Freiheitskämpfer Yul fortzugehen, heiratet sie den charmanten Fabrikantensohn Min. Doch nach der Hochzeit muss sie erkennen, dass ihr frisch angetrauter Ehemann sie hintergangen hat: Sein Versprechen, mit ihr von Daegu die wachsende Metropole Seoul zu ziehen, löst er nicht ein. Stattdessen muss die kluge junge Frau wie eine Sklavin für ihre koreanischen Schwiegereltern schuften. Doch Soo-Ja kämpft für ihre Selbstständigkeit. Und immer wenn sie Yul begegnet, blitzt neue Hoffnung in ihr auf – die Hoffnung, irgendwann doch noch ihr Glück zu finden.

Roman

Was dein Herz nicht weiß

Richard C. Morais

Kate Morton

Alice Hoffman

Kimberley Freeman

Anuradha Roy

Annia Ciezadlo

Christina Meldrum

Wanderlust: A Book Club Sampler from Simon & Schuster is your boarding pass to the beautiful, the mysterious, and the unknown. This book club sampler was created to pay homage to a book’s unique ability to transport your imagination around the world, taking you on journeys across distance and time. Whether you’re in the mood for a historical love story set on a sheep station in rural Australia or an illuminating memoir of life in the war-torn Middle East, these are books you and your reading group won’t want to miss: Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War by Annia Ciezadlo, Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman, The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman, Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum, The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais, The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park, An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy. Each excerpt in Wanderlust is accompanied by a collection of bonus materials intended to enrich your reading experience, including discussion questions, suggestions for enhancing your book club meeting, and author interviews. In the spirit of looking to the horizon, we also asked each author featured in this sampler one question: “What is your favorite travel memory?” Their answers are fittingly diverse—from Christina Meldrum’s summers spent at a family cottage in Lake Margrethe, Michigan, to Alice Hoffman’s inspirational first trip to Masada, the setting of her epic new novel The Dovekeepers. Anuradha Roy, the author of An Atlas of Impossible Longing, describes the lure of armchair travel best: “All readers…carry within themselves sediments of the places they have traveled to in books, the people they’ve met on the way. Therefore the strange déjà vu is when you land in a foreign country and wonder if you’ve been there before.” So, sit back, relax, and get ready for the trip of a lifetime. Bon Voyage!

A Book Club Sampler from Simon & Schuster

Wanderlust

Samuel Park

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